Half-Life 3 Rumors Ramp Up After G-Man Voice Actor Issues Cryptic Tweet — His First in Years

Half-Life 3 rumor and speculation is in overdrive after the voice actor behind G-Man issued a cryptic tweet teasing some sort of news for 2025.

In full G-Man mode, Mike Shapiro tweeted a narrated video in which he marked the end of 2024 by teasing “unexpected surprises” for this year, alongside the tags #Valve, #Halflife, #GMan, and #2025.

“Another year already,” Shapiro said in the tweet. “Good to see and hear from some many of you. May the next quarter century deliver as many unexpected surprises, hmm, as did the millennium’s first. Then again time is fluid like music. See you in the new year!”

#Valve #Halflife #GMan #2025 pic.twitter.com/mdT5hlxKJT

— Mike Shapiro (@mikeshapiroland) December 31, 2024

That’s pretty vague, but as many fans have pointed out, this is Shapiro’s first non-reply tweet since he congratulated Valve on the success of VR exclusive Half-Life: Alyx back in December 2020. A Shapiro tweet, then, is a rare thing indeed. But does this latest one mean anything?

Half-Life 2 recently turned 20 years old, and still there’s no official Half-Life 3 announcement from Valve despite the story ending on a cliffhanger with 2007’s Episode 2. In 2020, a making-of for Half-Life: Alyx revealed a swathe of games developed and shelved by Valve between the release of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Valve’s latest VR game. That list included details on a version of Half-Life 3 that was in development for around a year.

Geoff Keighley’s The Final Hours of Half-Life: Alyx revealed that at least five Half-Life games were canceled between Episode 2 and Alyx, along with a number of other projects — the most notable of which was referred to within Valve as Half-Life 3.

In November, to mark Half-Life 2’s 20th anniversary, Valve opened up about its development in a documentary that revealed never-before-seen work-in-progress footage, a brand-new Ice Gun, and a raft of new concept art. You can see the gameplay segment from the documentary in the video below.

Among the details shown in the video, Episode 3 would have been set in the Arctic, and it would have focused on Alyx as a companion character. Aside from the Ice Gun, the footage shows a blob-like enemy that could split into multiple parts. According to the documentary, the team had completed a “collection of playable levels in no particular order” and expected to be able to release the game within a year or two.

Valve has plenty on its plate already, of course, including ongoing support of Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, Steam itself, the Steam Deck, and new game Deadlock. Could it also be working on Half-Life 3 alongside all those other projects?

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.